1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to a packaging for a plurality of medical containers such as, for example, syringes or cartridges. Each container notably comprises a cylindrical body, in particular tubular, and “upper surface” located at or near the proximal end of this cylindrical body. The flange can be integrally formed with the cylindrical body or can be a separate piece mounted on this body.
2. Description of Related Art
In the present text, the distal end of a component or of a device means the end furthest away from the hand of the user and the proximal end means the end closest to the hand of the user, when the component or device is in the use position, i.e. when the user is injecting a medicine contained in the container into his body or into another patient's body. Similarly, in this application, the terms “in the distal direction” and “distally” mean in the direction of the injection of the medicine, and the terms “in the proximal direction” and “proximally” mean in the direction opposite the direction of injection.
Often, the containers must be transported from one site to another, when they are manufactured in one site and filled in another site, or, less frequently, when they are manufactured and filled in the same site and must be delivered, once filled, to another site.
For this transportation, the containers are usually put in a packaging comprising a grouping tray or nest, hereinafter “nest”, a packaging tub, hereinafter “tub”, a sealing cover and a plastic bag, hereinafter “header bag” to insure the sterility. The combination of the nest, the tub, the sealing cover and the header bag will be cited hereinafter as “packaging” while the term “tub” will correspond to an empty tub.
The nest can have various shapes according to the type of containers received: it can comprise openings that can be or not coaxially surrounded by chimneys for receiving the cylindrical bodies of the containers with flanges, these flanges leaning on the upper ends of the chimneys. Alternatively, the nest can have specific openings for receiving cartridges that would be in contact with the bottom of the tub. In another embodiment, the nest can have chimneys with closed bottoms for receiving containers without flanges; the nest can also be made of a resilient material and have openings in which the containers are frictionally maintained. In the following description, the nest described is the one with openings coaxially surrounded by chimneys for receiving containers with flanges. The nest is therefore means for storing and transporting several containers at the same time without risks of contamination, breakage. Besides, this storage and transportation means can be used and re-used from the manufacture of the containers until their final filling and storage by the pharmaceutical industry.
The tub includes a peripheral outer flange levelled with its upper opening, for the sealing of the sealing cover. The tub also includes a peripheral inner flange, located below the outer flange, in order to support the nest. In use, the nest is placed into the tub which is sealed with a sealing cover, and the whole is enclosed in the header bag and sterilised. Then, series of packagings are stacked bottom up into a box, for example, a cardboard or a plastic box, with an intermediate sheet placed between two series of packagings, a series being defined as a row of several packagings.
The header bag can be a classical header bag (e.g. made of plastic including a porous part). Alternatively, the header bag can have a reinforced part positioned in such manner that the header bag gets a function of load spreader. This reinforced part can be interdependent or not with the bag, it can be in moulded or thermoformed plastic, and it can be placed inside or outside the header bag. This reinforced part can be for example at least one thermoformed plastic plate placed inside the bag below and/or above the tub. This reinforced load spreader header bag protects the containers packaged into the packaging.
When received at destination, the packagings are extracted from the box and flipped bottom down, the header bag is open, the tub is extracted from the header bag and unsealed. Then, the nests are extracted therefrom and the containers can be filled and/or handled.
The intermediate sheet placed between two series of packagings is used for distributing the load of an upper series of packagings on the lower series of packagings. Indeed, if packagings were stacked without the intermediate sheet between them to, a load would be exerted on the sealing cover of the packagings. This load could generate a contact of the sealing cover with the containers flanges, and then generate contaminating particles on the containers or lead to the breakage of the flanges.
In addition, the containers users, after removing the packagings from the box or after filling the containers, may want to store some packagings and will therefore need to stack them. This may also bring the sealing cover in contact with the containers flanges and generate contamination or breakage of the flanges in the same way.
Furthermore, this kind of packaging has the drawback of consuming a large amount of packaging materials, because only fifteen packagings can be placed in a same box (five stacked series of three packagings in width, each series being separated one from another by an intermediate sheet) and because intermediate sheets are required. For the containers users, opening many boxes and removing many intermediate sheets is burdensome and time-consuming.
The purpose of the present invention is to overcome these drawbacks. The main object of the invention is therefore to provide a packaging for medical containers which efficiently prevents from any contamination or breakage of the containers flanges when a number of packagings are stacked.
Another goal of the invention is to provide a packaging which, at the end, reduces the amount of packaging materials used for transportation and in particular that reduces the weight of the packaging.
Another goal of the invention is to provide a packaging that gives rise to an easier work for opening the box containing these packagings.
Stacking and nesting solutions for individual trays are known. The document EP0592994 discloses a cup rack consisting of a frame with a support tray located below the upper edge of the frame for carrying cups. While this cup rack can be nested and stacked, no closable packaging, such as a tub, capable to be sealed with a sealing cover is disclosed neither suggested. The document DE29705636 also discloses a support tray for receiving sensitive objects but it does not disclose any closable packaging, such as a tub, capable to be sealed with a sealing cover. Furthermore, none of these documents discloses means located into a packaging for supporting support trays. Therefore, these two documents do not provide any solution to solve the problem of containers protection against contamination from the outside.
Finally, the document U.S. Pat. No. 3,589,511 discloses a packaging with trays stacked one above the other for receiving objects. Besides, when stacked one onto another, there is a contact between objects and the upper tray. Therefore, this document does not provide any solution to protect the containers against breakage. In addition, in this document, objects are received directly within the bottom of the tray and therefore no storage and transportation means for handling several objects at the same time are disclosed.
Hence, it remains a need for a packaging solution for medical containers that would provide at the same time a simplified handling and an efficient protection of the medical containers against both contamination and breakage.